Steemit Challenge s28wk1 : Zany and the tiny colored dragon

Zany watched the tiny colored dragon resting in her hand, its warm glow soaking into her cold fingers like a forgotten memory of sunlight. The city outside still lay awash in gray rain; no sound filtered through the streets save for distant traffic and the dripping of ancient gutters. Beside her palm, though, color wept — blues melting into greens, pastel reds mixing with shaking yellows that mimicked the turmoil in her chest.
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For a moment she didn’t move. She didn’t want the spell to end.

“Why did you come to me?” she whispered.

The dragon tilted its head, scales flickering into a curious green. When it spoke, its voice wasn’t exactly sound — more like a feeling pressed gently behind her ribcage.

“Because you felt invisible.”

Her throat tightened. She hadn’t told anyone that. Not her classmates who walked past her like she was fading glass… not even her mother, who’d been too tired lately to notice much of anything. Zany swallowed, holding the creature closer as if it might disappear with the next gust of wind.

“But how did you know?”

“Emotions call us,” it said. “Loneliness louder than most.”

Zany exhaled shakily. The rain continued to fall, but it no longer felt as if it was falling upon her. She stepped and the dragon fluttered up, circled around her head then alighted gently on her shoulder.

“Do you have a name?” she asked.

Scales glinting a mischievous gold.
“Names change with moods. But tonight… call me Ryll.”

They headed that way along the old, abandoned flower shop on the corner — a place Zany always passed but never went into. Its windows, coated in the dust of years and streaked with raindrops, looked inside on nothing but broken shelves and shadows. But, somehow, with Ryll’s form sending up a faint glimmer against her cheek, it looked less like a ruin and more like a crypt waiting to be opened.

Ryll leapt from her shoulder and landed on the cracked counter. Color spilled from him like spilled ink — soft pinks dancing with gentle blues.

“This was your favorite place once,” Ryll murmured.

Zany froze. She hadn’t thought about that in years — how she used to come here with her father and count the petals on every flower. After he left, she stopped noticing flowers altogether.

“How do you know so much about me?” she whispered.

The dragon curled into a small circle, scales dimming.

“I don’t know you. I feel you. Your memories cling to your emotions.”

Her eyes burned. It had been so long since she’d cried that emotion was foreign and almost embarrassing to her. But Ryll glanced up and nudged her wrist with his little nose.

“You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

That single sentence broke something open in her. Tears welled up noiseless in her eyes and ran down over her cheeks like warm rain. Ryll’s scales changed to a deep, steady amber — a color she somehow knew meant patience.

They remained that way until her breathing regulated.

By the time she finally looked up, it was a different world outside of the shop. The street was still wet, still cracked, still a ghost town — but there was a shimmer that hadn’t been there before. Pastels curled behind Ryll as he floated in front of her, tracing shapes with his hand through the air.

“What are you doing?”

“Showing you what you’ve forgotten to see.”

And suddenly, the colors formed something — a moving, glowing picture of a younger Zany laughing, chasing bubbles in this exact place, her father spinning her in circles.

She gasped. The image shifted again — this time showing her older, braver, no longer hiding behind her hoodie but walking through the city with Ryll perched proudly on her shoulder.

“Is that… me?” she whispered.

“It can be,” he answered.

The image blurred into the rain as Ryll settled back onto her palm.

“I came because you were alone. But you choose what happens next.”

Zany wiped her face, then took a deep breath. For the first time in a long time, the weight on her chest didn’t feel like a prison but like an origin.

“Then … don’t go yet,” she said.

Ryll lit up in shimmering colors — bright, hopeful, and breathtaking.

“I wasn’t planning to.”

And together, the teenager and the tiny colored dragon stepped back into the rain — not to escape the gray world, but to paint their own colors into it.

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Special thanks to @dove11